Only Human

honestly as if the Lupois himself posed the questions."
    Her eyebrows went up. "The Council has already met."
    "I'm afraid so. You made a very good impression on them."
    "How remarkable of me, when I never met them." Her voice was flat with suspicion. Or maybe hurt.
    "Yes, you did." He held out his hand. "Walk with me, and let me give you the explanations you deserve."
    She looked at him for a long moment. Then she took his hand.

    THE SKY WAS messy with sunset when they left the little house, darkening to indigo overhead. Lily didn't speak as Rule led her away from the scattering of lights that was the little village. It felt so good to be with him. She wanted to thump him in the head—hard—but still it felt right to walk beside him.
    "This path leads to the lake," he said. "Though that's a rather inflated term—it's more like an ambitious pond, but lovely by moonlight. I asked the others not to take you there today. I wanted to be the one to show it to you."
    "You also wanted to explain some things," she reminded him. "Not that I haven't figured some of it out. The Council meeting was never set fornine o'clock, was it?"
    "No, though you weren't the only one who believed it was. They met around six, after most of them had had a chance to meet you and form an opinion."
    Lily had been passed from person to person, group to group, all afternoon—courteously, often with real friendliness, but after a while it had been obvious her time and encounters were being managed. She'd thought they were checking her
    out because they were curious about the cop Rule had gotten himself involved with—and that they were making sure she didn't speak to anyone she wasn't supposed to. "Why all the secrecy?" she burst out. "Why go to the trouble to trick me?"
    "We are a secretive people. Too much so, perhaps, but we've had reason to be wary. My father knew his councillors wouldn't agree unless they trusted you. They in turn wanted to meet you without your knowing who they were. Didn't you wonder why everyone you met put you to work?"
    "I thought it was a custom or something." She'd fixed tea and swung a hammer, helped clear away deadfalls in the woods, washed a baby, and swept an old woman's floor. "What did they learn by watching me work?"
    "What did you learn by watching them while you worked together?"
    It was a fair question. An excellent question, actually. "A lot. One of the biggest surprises was how familiar some of it seemed."
    She'd startled him. "Familiar?"
    "Sure. The respect for tradition, the importance of family, work, and honor, the duty owed to one's elders—that's all very Chinese, you know."
    "I hadn't thought of it that way."
    "You don't know much about my people, either." Not yet. Would he? Did he want to learn? "I also began to get a grasp of why some lupi oppose the Citizenship Bill. It will change a lot of things, won't it? Your whole governance structure is based on the challenge. Not that I like it, but it does provide a check on the Lupois's power."
    "Some of my people believe the proposed law will make tyrants of our Lupois, yes. But humans evolved a system of checks and balances that doesn't necessarily involve killing each other. We can, too."
    They came out from under the trees and walked for a few yards along the shore before drifting to a stop. The sky overhead was salted with stars. Ahead, moonlight spilled across water as dark as Rule's eyes had been when the Change tried to take over. “The moon is almost full."
    He looked at her. "You aren't at all frightened, are you? Going for a moonlit stroll with me doesn't worry you. All of
    the lupi councillors who met you said you gave off no fearscent."
    “They didn't give me any reason to," she said, surprised. "Neither have you. Maybe if I'd met a young teenage boy I'd have been worried, given what you said about them."
    "They live separately until they learn control."
    That made sense. "So—who were they? Which of the people I met today were councillors?"
    "Nettie, Nicholas Masterson, Emile Hunter, Arthur Madoc, Fera Bibiloux—"
    "Fera? The blind woman? But..." Her voice trailed off as she remembered the odd feeling she'd had, sitting in the dimly lit cabin drinking tea while the old woman worked her loom, her hands sure in spite of her lack of sight. A prickly feeling, yet peaceful. Belatedly she understood that she'd been in the presence of power. "Okay, I guess I understand that. She's Gifted, isn't she?"
    "Something like that. Fera said you